Okay,
I’d had a bad day by anybody’s standards. It started with my awaking
lazily, dawdling through dreams of doe-eyed boys, reluctantly and
slowly grasping reality through a haze of impossible pleasure. It
occurred to me that the morning sun was just a little too bright, and
the ease of my waking just a little too comfortable. I turned my head
and squinted at the digital alarm clock by the bed, and felt an instant
shock at the monotonous, blinking numbers: 12:00. 12:00. 12:00.

“Shit!”
I looked at my watch. Ten minutes after ten. The power must have gone
out during the night. I hurled myself out of bed, hopping on one foot
as I struggled to pull on my pants. I am so screwed, I thought, I am so
fucking screwed.
I ran
my way through the house to the front door, grabbing my keys on the
way, and flung it open. The sight that greeted me was beyond a shock; I
was stupefied. My driveway was empty. Where was my car? I looked up the
street, down the street... where the hell was
my goddam car?? Oh no, this couldn’t be happening. This was not
happening. Not to me. Not this morning. God couldn’t be this cruel...
and then I saw it. Taped to my front door was a bright yellow piece of
paper. “Notice of Repossession.” I snatched it down and barely took in
the details: “Failure to make payments ...2000 Jeep Cherokee ...
license plate VRN 236 ... British Columbia....” I could feel a vein
pulsing steadily in my forehead, and realized if I didn’t take a minute
to calm down, I’d likely go into cardiac arrest. I unbuttoned my
collar, suddenly overwhelmed with heat, and sat down on my front step.
What did I expect? I knew I’d have trouble making payments when I
bought the damned thing, and now that my sales were down at work, well,
I really was
behind
on the payments....

So,
in my usual self-appeasing way, I
could deal with this. Right now, I had to
get to work. I got up, shaking my head, and went in to call Yellow Cab.

It
took the guy almost thirty minutes to show up, and when he did, he
drove straight past my house. I ran out into the street waving my arms
in the air ridiculously, and finally he pulled into a neighbor’s
driveway, turned around, and came back.

“Look,
Jerry, I’m not even going to go into the hour and I don’t want to hear
your excuse...” I started to protest, but he silenced me with a hand.

“Jerry,
we’ve had this conversation before. It’s pointless and irrelevant. I’ve
been going over the numbers. You haven’t had a sale in over two weeks
... and three weeks before that one! I’ve got a quota to maintain here.
I’ve got bosses too, ya know? I’m sorry Jerry, this just isn’t working
out. I’ve been more than patient with you, and feel I’ve treated you
generously. But there are limitations on kindness in the business
world. I’m gonna have to let you go.

Fifteen
minutes later I was sitting on a barstool at the Cambie Street Pub,
drinking morosely and contemplating my situation. I had my house, left
to me by my mother, and a few stocks I could cash in, but that was
about it. I had very little savings, and no car. The situation was
bleak. I sighed, took a gulp of beer, and lit a cigarette.

I
had so little direction in my life; no
real hobbies, no goals, no interests. Nothing excited me anymore. There
was no spark, no fire. I mean, what did I really want out of life? What
did I want to do? Where was the meaning init all?

I
noticed the darkening window pane, the raised din of the after-work
crowd around me, and realized I’d been there several hours. Time to
walk. If there was one thing in this world that soothed my frazzled
nerves, that offered opportunity for reflection and self-exploration,
it was walking. I could walk all night, and I often did. There was a
Robert Frost poem that always came to mind on these excursions. It was
my creed, my identity:

I
have been one acquainted with the night.I
have walked out in rain — and back in rain. I
have outwalked the furthest city light.

I
have looked down the saddest city lane. I
have passed by the watchman on his beat And
dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I
have stood still and stopped the sound of feet When
far away an interrupted cryCame
over houses from another street,But
not to call me back or say good-bye; And
further still at an unearthly height One
luminary clock against the skyProclaimed
the time was neither wrong nor right. I
have been one acquainted with the night.

Yes,
acquainted with the night I was. It was early yet, and as I walked the
streets of downtown Vancouver, I watched the familiar routine of office
workers and Starbucks employees and department store cashiers, all
hustling to get home; to lives of family dinners and solitary
apartments, to Yoga classes and mundane TV shows. Long lines queued at
bus stops and traffic was its usual nightmare. I worked my way up
Robson Street, looking through the windows of trendy stores that sold
organic soap or alternative CDs or Gap apparel. I observed the
beginnings of the nightclub crowd strutting their stuff, giving
flirtatious smiles to their dates in absurd but well practiced ritual.

Midnight
found me on Davie Street in the gay district, an area well known to me,
checking out the drag queens and leather daddies, the limp-wristed
dainties and their “fag-hag” friends gossiping excitedly. I stopped at
the “Little Sisters” all night gay bookstore, and browsed for new
additions to my boy-love library. I walked down Davie, past Granville,
and into “Boy’s Town.” Boy’s Town was the local area for gay
prostitutes, but strictly speaking, there were rarely any boys there.
Mostly they were a collection of sad, disheveled twenty or
thirty-something year old junkies, nervously shifting from foot to foot
and attracting only closet-case family men in SUVs, and elderly
gentlemen who couldn’t score in the nightclubs. I often helped them out
when I could, a few bucks here and there, and nodded to the familiar
faces I saw. I was just walking up to “Teacup,” a bleach-blond
twenty-five year old I often took out for burgers when he was having a
slow night. A new face caught my eye.

“Now
come on, Teacup, can’t you refer to your brethren as something other
than meat? He’s just a kid — what’s he doing out here?”

He
looked tired and world weary. He could barely be thirteen.

“Oh,
you know the game, sugar. At that tender age, he’ll only be out for a
few hours ‘til he picks up a full time sugar-daddy. He’s valuable goods
out here.”

“High
market value, huh?”

“Ahh,
the flower of youth, so fleeting...” Teacup sighed wistfully.

I
gave him a five dollar bill from my pocket, and walked up to the boy.

“Lookin’
for a date, mister?” He took a long drag off his cigarette, the cherry
glow illuminating his childish features. He had jet black hair and a
small, pointy nose brushed with freckles; incongruous with his up front
manner and cigarette.

“How
old are you?” I asked.

“What’s
it matter? I ain’t jailbait, I’m fourteen.”

It
was true, the age of consent in
Canada is fourteen, but somehow I doubted the truth of the statement.
Anyway, I had a problem with paying a kid for sex — it felt like
coercion. But I’d had a bad day — I could really use
the company. I stood there wrestling with my conscience, and decided
the boy was going to end up going home with someone tonight
— at least with me he’d be safe.

“Well,
I ain’t gonna wait all fuckin’ night. You wanna date or dontcha?” I
smiled wryly at him. “Yeah, let’s go for a walk,” I answered.

Teacup
winked and smiled as he watched us leave.

“So
whatcha want?” he asked, “Fifty for a blowjob, hunnert-fifty round the
world...”

“Hey,
hey ... slow down cowboy. I’ll tell you what; I’ll pay you for the
night, you come back to my place, have a bath and a meal, and you can
crash on the couch if you want. You don’t have to do anything.”

He
looked up at me suspiciously. “You’re
not gonna read me Bible passages or somethin’, are ya?” he asked. I
laughed. “No, definitely not,”
I said. “I’m agnostic and I don’t own a Bible. I just want some
company, and you obviously need a bath. What you decide to do is up to
you — like I said, you get paid either way.”

“Whatever’s
clever,” he said.

We
caught a cab off of Granville, and soon were at my house. He walked
uncomfortably around the living room, looking at the pictures and
classic movie posters on the wall. In the bright light of the room, I
noticed he had green eyes; perhaps the greenest, most beautiful eyes
I’d ever seen. But his face was dirty, and his hair a little greasy.

“Let
me get you a towel and bathrobe. You can run the bath, and I’ll throw
your clothes in the washer.”

I
showed him to the bathroom, and busied myself in the closet of the
hallway getting a towel and clean robe. I heard the shower running, and
guessed he’d opted for that instead of a bath. The door to the bathroom
was cracked, and I entered to drop off the towel and robe and pick up
his clothes. The sliding shower door was wide open, and he stood there
in the steam, looking at me. Water cascaded over his head and down his
skinny pale body, glistening over the bumps of his ribs and running
over his barely developing pubis; dripping off his small, uncircumcised
penis. I could barely take my eyes off him long enough to set down the
towel and robe, and pick up his clothes. He smiled at me suggestively,
and lifted his arms to stretch under the hot water. I smiled and
winked, then turned around and made my way out the door.

After
throwing his clothes in the wash, I took some hamburger meat out of the
fridge and started frying up some burgers. The appealing smell of the
cooking food eventually drew the boy out of the bathroom, and he sat at
the table in his comically oversized bathrobe, inhaling the burgers. I
lit a cigarette and observed him fondly, wondering what this poor
wayward urchin was doing on the mean streets of Boy’s Town. Then I
noticed the answer: running up his left arm were the distinct tracks of
an IV drug user. Odd as it seemed, it was not uncommon for very young
kids to get addicted to heroin in Vancouver. It was a heroin town; its
high population of Asian immigrants ensured a steady flow of China
White from the Golden Triangle, and the Triads ran the show as far as
organized crime was concerned in Western Canada. Sad, but not at all
uncommon. I offered him a cigarette as he finished eating, and he took
it, and lit it, with practiced ease.

I
chuckled. “Nothing, now. How
old are you? For real.” He cast his eyes down. “Thirteen.”

“Yeah,
I figured. What’re you doing working Boy’s Town at thirteen? I mean,
not to judge or anything, but that’s a pretty hard life for a thirteen
year old to be living.”

“Shit
happens,” he said.

I
chose not to pry into his junk habit
for now; if he wanted to tell me about it, he would. I got up, pulled a
beer out of the fridge, and walked to the living room. I popped a Neil
Young CD into the machine, and put on “Cowgirl in the Sand.” As I was
collapsing into the couch and twisting open my beer, Sean followed me
into the room. He smiled as he stood in front of me, and undid the belt
on his robe.

“You
don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, you know,” I said.

He
ignored me, and slipped the robe off his shoulders and onto the floor.
He was already aroused and fully engorged, and he came forward and sat
on my lap facing me. I set my beer down on the end-table and ran my
hands up his back; from the crack of his buttocks upwards, feeling the
ridges of his spine bump under my fingers, his skin hot. My hands came
to his neck, and I brought him forward to kiss me, lightly at first,
until I felt his tongue probing at my lips. I opened my mouth and
kissed him deeply then, running my tongue over his teeth, and my
fingers to the nether regions below. I laid him down gently on the
couch, and stretched out on top of him as he worked my belt.

Blinding
sun, again. Ahh, but this
morning, this morning there were no commitments, there was no rushing.
I opened my eyes slowly, at my convenience, and rolled over to touch
the boy. The bed was empty. I snapped awake quickly, sitting up. My
drawers were open and rifled through; clothes hanging haphazardly out
of them. I felt the vein in my forehead pulsing again. I jumped out of
bed, and ran to the living room. My stereo. My DVD player. My CDs ...
gone. I ran back to my bedroom and checked the drawer in the night
table. My wallet was gone. My credit cards, my ID, my cash...all gone.
Now, it takes quite a bit to make me lose it, to make me really
explode. This did it. I screamed in a blinding fury.

“FUCK!!! Fuck!
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Goddammit!!”

I
kicked the wall violently, my foot flashing with agonizing pain. I
reached down and grabbed the injured appendage, hopping around on one
foot maniacally, cursing my existence. I felt like Job; what in the
hell did I do to deserve all of this? It was beyond comprehension, and
I was seeing red. I threw on some clothes, grabbed my hidden emergency
cash, called a cab, and limped out the front door.

By
the time I got to Boy’s Town, it was still only eleven in the morning,
and only the most stalwart junkies were out. There was almost no
business at this hour, most of the clientele shying away from the light
of day. The street walkers that remained were sad, desperate cases,
probably dope sick. There was no sign of the regulars I knew, but that
was okay. I could wait. I went into the Subway shop on the corner of
Davie, and sat down.

I
sat there all day, watching the comings and goings of local business
people, and finally, around five, I saw Teacup stroll onto the scene. I
ran out the door.

“Why
you limpin’, honey?” he asked.

“Don’t
even fuckin’ ask, Teacup. That little turd ripped me off last night.”

Teacup
cackled loudly. “Honey, don’tcha know never to fall asleep with a trick
in the house? You’d think you just fell off the dildo truck!”

He
continued laughing at the hilarity of my dilemma, almost doubling over.
“Teacup, as amusing as this all may seem to you, I’ve gotta find the
kid... “

“To do what,
sugar? The brat’s not even legal! One peep from him and you’ve gotta
one-way ticket to the joint! You know he
holds all the cards, baby.”

I
hadn’t even thought of what I was
gonna do. I mean, I’d never hurtthe kid ... but maybe I
could catch him
before he hawked all my shit for dope.

“Well,
you know it’s a supermarket out there, but you happen to be in luck. I
saw your kid this morning — he was scoring off Cong at Main and
Hastings. Hang the corner, he’ll show up again sooner or later.” He
smiled encouragingly.

I
gratefully gave him twenty bucks from my emergency cash, and flagged
down a cab.

Main
and Hastings was perhaps the most horrible corner in Western Canada. It
was referred to in Vancouver as “Skid Row,” and it deserved the
reputation. Vancouver police had long ago come to a tacit understanding
with the voluminous addict population of the city: stay in your own
little corner of town, and we’ll leave you alone. Police only arrested
the most flagrant abusers of the law here, and the result was horrific.
The area boasted the highest per capita AIDS rate in the civilized
Western World, and absolute poverty was the rule. Drunken aboriginals
lay heaped on the sidewalks, dealers openly plied their trade, and
junkies fixed their dope in doorways. Ironically, the Vancouver Police
Department’s main office was located right smack in the middle of it
all; on the corner of Main and Hastings. The fortress-like building was
always within sight of the wheeling and dealing pushers.

I
stood there, leaning on the wall, and
watched the activity. “Cong” was a small, enterprising Vietnamese man
who always wore a baseball cap. He’d become sort of notorious in the
area for never getting busted. He always had a flunkie doing the actual
business for him, while he stood by and supervised, cussing out sick
junkies begging for fronts. He wore cheap, shabby clothes, but nobody
doubted his wealth. He brought in thousands of dollars a night, and
he’d been working the area for ten or fifteen years. What’s more, he
never seemed to spend anything;
he was always out here. If he kept it all in a mattress somewhere, it’d
have to be a pretty goddam big mattress.

I
didn’t have to wait long to find Sean. Soon enough, he showed up
flashing a wad of bills. So much for my stuff. Nobody bothered him,
‘cause nobody dared touch one of Cong’s customers. I waited ‘til his
business was done, and followed him. He walked about three blocks and
turned into an alley. I peeked my head around the corner, and observed
him by a dumpster, preparing his fix. He tapped the contents of a small
paper flap into an Evian bottle cap, sucked up some water from the
bottle with his syringe, and squirted it in. He stirred the mixture
with the plunger from his syringe. Then he dropped a small piece of
cotton, a “filter,” into the solution, and sucked it up through the
cotton. I winced as he pushed the needle into his arm, drew some blood
to ensure he had a vein, and depressed the plunger. I hoped he was
using a clean needle. It suddenly dawned on me that I was no longer mad
at the boy. How could I be mad at him? He was a slave to his own
pathos. His head lolled in apparent ecstasy and relief, and I felt only
empathy.

I
walked up to him, his eyes closed, and made my presence known. “Hi
Sean.”

He
opened his eyes, widely once he recognized me, and immediately tried to
dart. I caught him by the collar. “Relax, Sean, I’m not gonna fuck you
up.”

He
eyed me skeptically.

“I
am gonna take my money back, though,” I said.

With
my hand still on his collar, I reached my other hand into his pocket,
and removed the money. I also, thankfully, found my credit cards and ID.

“Sean,
I’m gonna let you go now. You can run back to Boy’s Town if you like,
get picked up by some looney tune or worse, and continue your life of
self-inflicted crisis... or you can come with me. I’m probably the last
chance you’re gonna have for a really long time to pull yourself out of
this hole, and I suggest you take it.”

“Whatta
you want from me?” he asked, his translucent green eyes angry.

“Absolutely nothing, Sean.
I don’t
need
this in my life right now — you couldn’t have picked a worse time to
show up. But I can’t let you go without offering you a chance. I think
you probably deserve it and you’re young enough to change paths.”

“So
whatta you wanna do? Take me to some hospital? Put me in the system?”

“Sean,
I’ve seen what the system does to kids — you’d come out worse than when
you went in. And I don’t have
money for a hospital. Look, why don’t you come home with me and we’ll
talk about it?”

He
looked down at his shoes. He looked so vulnerable, so tragic at that
moment, that I let go of his collar and took him in my arms, embracing
him. He began crying like the child he was supposed to be.

“You
can do
this,
Sean,” I whispered, “you’re a tough kid. And I’ll be right there with
you. You won’t be alone through this...”

“You don’t understand!”
he cried, “I’m gonna be sosick...”

“But
you only have to do it once. Once, and it’s over... you can go to
school, play video games, have a boyfriend ... you can be a kid, Sean.
You can do all those things.”

“You
promise you’ll stay with me?” he asked. “I’ll have you in my arms the
whole time, Sean.” And so, I took him home.

I
had a friend who was a doctor, and I
managed, after some delicate explanation, to get a prescription for
some mild Valium and clonidine, which he told me would make the boy
more comfortable through the worst of it. And the worst of it was bad.
Within twenty-four hours, the cold sweats had started. He was relieved
only by continuously running hot baths. Day two brought vomiting to a
level I’d never experienced before. He could hold nothing at all down,
and when he had nothing more to throw up, he dry heaved agonizingly,
crying in pain at the spasms. Day three started with volcanic diarrhea,
and continued the same through the fourth and
fifth days. I was becoming seriously concerned about dehydration. He
had no control over his bowels, and the watery feces ran freely, often
on meas I held his shivering, convulsive
body. But it was just shit, and the boy had to know I was right there;
that he was inherently valuable, and we were doing this together. Shit
washes off, but wounds to the psyche can last forever. It took ‘til day
six for him to be able to hold any significant amount of water down.
He’d managed to choke enough down through the past six days to keep
going, but never more than a few tablespoons. This day he actually
drank a full glass, the water dribbling down his chin, and I knew the
storm was breaking.

ONE
YEAR LATER

Sean
came home with a bloody nose. I
guess he got into a fight at school, or so the letter from his
principal said. He was suspended for three days, but that’s okay. We’d
been through worse. It took a lotof creative paperwork to get
him back in
school, but we managed it. His adapting into a school setting with
peers, concerned only with shopping and dating, was a harder task. But
we’re dealing with that, too. We have a lot of issues to work on, like
his stealing and hoarding money from my wallet. I think the answer lies
in convincing him that his home life is stable; that he’s never gonna
have to pick up and run, that he’ll always have a home here.

I’m
working again. Nothing spectacular — selling insurance — but it gets
the bills paid. Sean’s mom shows up from time to time. She’s a skid row
whore, and a junkie too. I’m really ambivalent about her. She’s happy
that Sean’s doing well (she refers to me as his “sugardaddy,” which
irks me to no end), and she seems to genuinely love the boy. But it
makes me wonder why she couldn’t have conquered her addictions to care
for him, instead of passing on her habits. Despite my reservations,
she’s his mom, and I think it’s important they stay in touch.

Sean
is a very needy, vulnerable, and sometimes angry kid. And I’m
completely in love with him. He has this uncanny wit, this way of
crudely putting things that would challenge even Socrates. He doesn’t
give himself enough credit for his sharp intelligence, and I’m trying
to nurture his self-confidence. But it’s slow going. Day by day, one
day at a time.

We
have this ritual every night. Sean comes out of the shower and stands
in front of me coyly, as though this was our first night. His robe
drops to the floor. I take in his alabaster skin; the smooth ridges of
his ribs, his “outie” belly-button. The light dusting of hair on his
pubis. The rigid penis. He straddles my legs, and I run my hands over
his warm skin. My fingers find the moist, clenching ring below. He
undoes my belt.

Good
old Job. All he had to do was withstand God’s trials, and the riches of
heaven would be his.

Editor’s
Notes: The preceding story touches upon some significant emotional
truths. That said, however, it also manages to gloss over some
important legal and ethical issues.

At
one point the story mentions that the age of consent in Canada is 14.
This is, as far as we know, still true, but there are some major
exceptions:

Nonconsensual
sex is considered “sexual assault”, and illegal regardless of age. I
believe sex in a public place also is illegal regardless of age, but I
did not find a citation on this question.

Anal
intercourse with someone between 14 and 17 years of age is illegal, but
— not so in Quebec (R. v. Roy); and — not so in Ontario (R. v. M.)

Consensual
sex with someone between 14 and 17 years of age is illegal if it is
considered exploitative. This includes sex involving prostitution,
pornography or an abuse of trust, authority or dependency of the boy.

The
ethical issue is one of consent. The
story implies that the boy gave his consent: “You don’t have to do
anything … “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, you know,”
I said. He ignored me, and slipped the robe off his shoulders and onto
the floor. He was already aroused and fully engorged …” The problem
with that assumption is that the boy needs money to procure drugs. For
an addict, feelings about the sex are secondary to the need for drugs
or confused with the need. Even after he doesn’t need drugs, the boy
steals money and hoards it. The boy’s idea seems to be that sex
actually is the man’s motivation, even when he denies that.